


The Road to Mama Mia

by Rosedapple



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-04-23 13:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19152028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosedapple/pseuds/Rosedapple
Summary: Alice's parents are getting a divorce (placed at about 1 year before TGWDLM) and the person who is most able to comfort her before the move to Clivesdale is someone she doesn't usually talk to, the stoner Deb.





	1. Chapter 1

Alice couldn’t believe her parents were getting a divorce and she was going to have to move to _Clivesdale_ of all places. She loved her mom, but Alice was always more of a Daddy’s girl, plus she’d lived in Hatchetfield her whole life. Plus she was going to be moving in between junior and senior year–how awful is that? You go to one high school for three years and then you’re just expected to go to a new one and by the time you make new friends–at a time when no one needs new friends and you’re supposed to be comfortable and confident in the school–you’re all graduating and no one’s going to care about you or want to see you at the 10 year graduating class reunion cause you weren’t really part of the class. And sure, she doesn’t exactly have a ton of friends here in Hatchetfield, but she’s definitely part of her graduating class. She’s known a lot of these peeps since she was five and starting kindergarten. They’re like the extended family she never really had.

Family she’s going to have to leave behind. **Why didn’t her dad fight to let her stay??** Sure he didn’t always have a ton of time, but he came to her dance recitals and choir concerts and knows her order at her favorite restaurant, Red Lobster. That’s more than many of her friends’ dads ever did. She pulls up her cardigan sleeves and swipes at her tears. She’s not sure if they’re angry tears or sad tears. Maybe both. Maybe it’s some other emotion, one that hasn’t been discovered yet. Maybe some psychologists are in a lab somewhere trying to figure out if there’s a seventh main emotion beyond the known joy, sadness, fear, anger, disgust (like in Inside Out) and surprise (which Inside Out left out for some reason...), which she knows cause her AP Psych class just covered it. At least she gets to finish out the year. At least she doesn’t have to miss the AP tests. Trying to convince herself that there’s a bright side to this move has never been harder.

She told her friends in choir today about what happened that means she has to move. _A brave face, for them. They can’t know how close you are to crying._ They can’t know how close you are to crying. She already had anxiety before all this happened. She _just_ came out a few months ago, and luckily her parents and friends have all been supportive, but now she feels like she’s back in the closet, hiding her emotions like this. Pretending she doesn’t want to cry all the time.

Just as she’s thinking how close her feelings are to the way she felt before she came out as gay, a girl in a plaid shirt that smells like weed walks around and sits next to her on the rock in front of the school as she waits to be picked up.

“Hey.”

Alice jerked her head up, still trying to wipe off the tears, also keenly aware of how red her face and eyes must be after all her crying.

“Hi.” Her body returned to her hunched position.

“Are you okay?”

Alice opened her mouth to answer but just closed it again. What finally came out: “N-not really.”

The girl waited for a bit, then cautiously asked “D-d’you wanna...talk about it?” Then when Alice didn’t immediately respond, “it’s ok if you don’t. People don’t always like to talk about their feelings. I know I don’t always like to talk about my feelings. I just figured, since you’ve been crying out here by yourself, that maybe you might need someone to talk to so I–”

“Deb, for someone who smokes weed all the time, you sure seem nervous.” A half smile shined its way through Alice’s mane of hair, which Deb returned.

“Why do you think I’m always smoking it if not for my nerves when talking to a pretty girl?”

A chuckle escaped from Alice’s lips, but once the true meaning of what was said reached her, Alice was sure her face was even redder than before. She glanced at Deb, and a bit more red stained her cheeks too.

“You must talk to pretty girls a lot then if you have enough nerves to smoke like that.”

“Or... maybe I just am always trying to get up the courage to talk to one in particular. Maybe it’s not even pretty girls but people in general... ha.” It was clear Deb was trying to make light of what had just slipped out of her mouth, and Alice was a little too sad to pursue it. “But now that we’ve established that I have my reasons for smoking pot, d-d’yah maybe wanna... tell me what’s up?”

“Well, you’re not wrong about that–”

“So my parents are getting a divorce–that sucks, yeah, but like it happens, I get it, they’ve been fighting fairly often for years, that’s probably for the best– but they just DECIDED–without consulting me in any way WHATSOEVER, by the way– that I should move to Clivesdale with my mom. First of all _Clivesdale_? Also, move to a new school for my last year of high school without any of my friends and learn my way around the school like a freshman just to graduate at the end of the year? No thanks. Not to mention that–honestly?–I’d rather live with my dad just like as a person cause like we have more fun together and I’m old enough to take care of myself so it doesn’t really matter that he doesn’t always have a ton of time to be doing things around the house or pick me up from after school stuff or whatever, so we’d have a nice time together and I could be able to stay here in Hatchetfield, but NO, I have to go move with my mom. Yes, I love my mom, but come on! Why would I rather move to a new school for my last year of high school than just stay? It’s not like my dad’s abusive or anything? He’s a pretty good dad to be honest. And I just wish they would listen to me or that my dad would fight to keep me or something, but I have too much anxiety to get angry enough–or at least show enough anger– to convince them that I SHOULD BE ABLE TO STAY!”

As she was talking, she just got louder and _louder_ until the last line just _burst_ out of her her before she fell silent. She was breathing heavily, and in the pause that followed, she realized that she hadn't had an outburst like that in _so long_ , she couldn’t even think of when that had been.

Deb hesitated for a moment and Alice could practically hear her start to say something before closing her mouth. Finally, some actual sounds made it out.

“Yeah, that sucks. But, y’know, you could say something? Maybe? I get the whole anxiety thing, obviously, but it doesn’t have to be forceful. You could maybe just say something about the fact that you’d rather not change schools, maybe? That way if you’re worried about hurting your mom, she can maybe understand it’s not about her? I don’t know.” At that moment was when Alice realized Deb’s hand had at some point moved to her back and was rubbing in a semi-comforting way... clearly Deb had never really comforted someone like this before. She could feel the heat from Deb’s hand on her back, but there was also some extra heat on her face too.

“I... I did, or at least I tried to, but they’d already decided, and it’s really hard to change mom’s mind when she’s set on something.”

Deb’s hand continued it’s motions, and Alice noticed that she was surprisingly comfortable with Deb even though they’d never really spent time together outside of classes–they only had choir together this year. Deb was pretty in a butch sort of way–handsome, some might say. Alice had always thought that, but their social circles didn’t interact much, and Deb was a stoner, which in theory was uncomfortable for the honor-student in her. She only knew what it smelled like cause all the stoners in choir had that smell on their clothes, and it could definitely get to be a bit too much in the dressing room or on a particularly warm day in the choir room.

Here they were, though, sitting on a rock outside of the school. Alice, spilling her problems, Deb comforting her. It was almost like they were real friends, not just casual acquaintances. Alice leaned into Deb’s touch, feeling better after finally having the chance to express all her intense sadness and anger.

“Thank you.”

“Uh, what?” Alice got a sad, swooping, disappointed feeling in her stomach. Right. Deb was still stoned. Who knew if she would remember any of this tomorrow. Still, Alice had too much anxiety to not thank her.

“Thank you. For listening to me and–and trying to comfort me.”

“Oh, right, that.” Deb’s other hand, the one not touch Alice, scratched her head sheepishly. “Well if you ever want an ear, I’m pretty free, heh.”

The disappointed feeling in Alice’s stomach changed to fluttering butterflies at Deb’s sheepish admissions. Alice shook her head with a small smile on her face.

“Seriously, though. We’ve never really hung out. Why’d you decide to come and talk to me? Not that I minded, but...”

“Well... uh... I’d been trying to get my courage up to talk to you for a while, and when I saw you crying... I just didn’t want to leave you alone if that wasn’t what you wanted.”

Deb’s hand paused–hesitating–as she spoke those words that could be a bit more telling than she’d meant. Alice gathered her courage enough to look up at Deb’s face, which was just as red as she guessed her own would be if she could see it right now.

Before Alice or Deb could say anything else, a car honked and Alice tore her gaze away to see her mom’s minivan pulling up to the school, her mom waving at her with a bigger smile on her face than Alice had seen in a long time. At least this was good for her, though Alice knew that already.

She gave an apologetic look to Deb and mustered her strength to put a fake smile on her face as she opened the passenger’s seat door and got into the car. Luckily her tears had already dried up, partly thanks to Deb’s kind eyes and listening ears, where Alice starred as her mom pulled away from the school, chatting away.

* * *

 

Later that night around the dinner table, which did still have all three of them as Alice was surprised to find, her mom decided to, for once, ask Alice how her dad had gone.

“It was fine. I... talked to someone I don’t often talk to...”

“Oh?”  
  
“Just some girl from choir. She was waiting outside of school at the same time I was.”

“That’s nice.”  
  
“Would I have met her?” her dad asked. He always had been the one more interested in her choir concerts, though maybe it was just him being protective.

“Maybe? She’s been in choir all year. Deb is her name.”

“Hmm... I can’t think of–”  
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself, Bill.”

“Oh _really_ , don’t _trouble_ myself??”

“Bill, I thought we decided to have a family dinner to _support_ Alice, not fight in front of her!”

“Well I’m trying to support her and you’re acting like I’m doing something wrong!”

“She clearly doesn’t want to talk about choir!”

“She was the one who brought it up! Just because _you_ don’t like the choir–”

“Oh who says I don’t like the choir?!”

Alice sighed as her parents continued fighting. This was exactly why they were getting a divorce. At least this way she could sneak off to her room without them trying to stop her.

She immediately closed the door, sat on her bed, and grabbed her laptop. She opened up Facebook to find a new friend request. Deb. Alice opened her profile–her profile picture was a selfie with that rainbow flag filter. Well, it was definitely the Deb she knew, so she accepted the request. Not like she posted much on there anyway.

Almost immediately after she accepted the request, a new message popped into her inbox.

[hey, your family still being asses?]

Alice smiled a bit.

[Yeah. but hey what’s new?]

[oof yeah i feel that]

[my family wasn’t exactly supportive when i came out]

[ :( sorry to hear that. At least mine aren’t homophobes.]

[at least you got the luck there]

[Yeah... are your parents still together?]

[nah, but they never really were together]

[oh]

[yeah. i live with my mom, tho. Dad was never really around]

[but i’m not the one in crisis]

[well I feel weird just talking about me]

[i can get that]

[you were in the latest musical, right?]

[yeah. Do you like musicals?]

[yeah they’re fun. Haven’t been in one before tho]

[ah... i’m in the school ones usually]

[yeah i know]

[what’s your favorite part you’ve ever played?]

Deb was almost as easy to talk to over text as she was in person, which was definitely saying something considering how awkwardly the conversation had started. Talking about family issues was not usually the best conversation starter.

When Alice’s parents came by her room a couple of hours later to apologize for fighting at dinner, Alice was _still_ talking to Deb.

“Hi honey.”

“We’re sorry for fighting at dinner tonight, sweetie.” Her mom sat down on her bed. “Are you upset with us?”  
Really. Her mom was asking it now, rather than, y’know, when they first told her about the divorce or the plan for Alice to live with her mom or literally any other time since.

“It’s fine. Just reminds me why the divorce is happening.”

Her mom started rubbing her back like Deb had, but surprisingly it wasn’t as comforting. _Maybe because Mom’s doing it more out of guilt than sympathy_.

“We’re really sorry, Baby. We love you so much.”

“I know, mom.” _Maybe if you actually asked me what I wanted this wouldn’t keep happening._

Her decided to get on the touch-Alice-to-express-how-guilty-you-feel express and came in for a side hug. “You are so important to us. I hope you can remember that during this tricky time.”

“I know, Dad.” _Maybe you guys could actually show that by talking to me and really caring what I want instead of just asking me how I’m doing to alleviate your own guilt_

“Alright, well you let us know if there’s anything we can do for you, hon. Love you.”

“Love you, too, Dad.” _I will NOT be telling you. Anxiety’s a bitch and I’ll just end up disappointed_.

“Goodnight, Alice. Love you.”

“Love you, Mom. Night.”

Alice let out a burst of air as they shut the door. This was gonna be a hard couple of months.

[everything ok?]

[yeah. My parents just came to say goodnight]

At least she might have a new friend in Deb.


	2. Chapter 2

A week later, Alice and Deb had been facebook messaging everyday, exchanging jokes about everything from class to tumblr- where they also became mutuals. Both were still hanging with their normal friend groups at school and such but even at school Alice was constantly on her phone, smiling, because of something Deb sent.

[hey did you see this]

[see what?]

[ah sorry]

Deb sent a link

[omg! So cute!!]

Deb sent a gif

[lol, yeah, just like you]

[:D]

[:)]

You sent a link

[omg that’s adorable]

[Is that from a musical?]

[Yeah it’s from Waitress]

[ah, I need to watch it]

[there isn’t an official recording but...]

You sent a link

[oh the link doesn’t work]

[oh sorry]

[don’t worry I found it]

[what??]

[it’s not hard to get bootlegs these days]

[omg my hero]

Alice was eating lunch and she heard a laugh from across the cafeteria. She looked up and Deb met her eyes.

[if you wanna hang out I can show you]

“Hey, Alice, are you coming to Grace’s party this weekend?”

“Uh, what?”

“Jeez, Alice, you really haven’t been paying attention. Grace is having a party this weekend cause her parents are out of town.”

“Grace _Chasity_??”

“Oh my god, no, Grace Wilson from the orchestra pit.”

“Oh, that makes way more sense.”

“Yeah, so are you coming?”

“I don’t know...”

“C’mon, we miss you, and if you’re going to be moving to _Clivesdale_ ,” everyone let out a chorus of groans, “we wanna spend some time with you!”

“Ok... I’ll come”

[ok when?]

Amidst her friends’ cheers and excitement, Alice found herself more focused on the girl across the room.

[I have some time now if you want, or after school any day this week]

Alice smiled, stood up, and grabbed her bag.

“Alice, where are you going?”

“Oh just over there,” she said, pointing at Deb’s table. “Deb and I have been texting lately and she wanted to show me something about theater bootlegs.”

With confused looks on their faces at Alice’s words, Alice’s friends stopped the discussion. The one who’d asked where she was going said, “since when are you friends with Deb? I don’t know that I’ve literally ever seen you talk to her other than for choir. Besides, I thought you were super anti-drugs.”

“Well she’s been helping me feel better about my family issues and we’ve been texting a lot lately. And Natalie, just because I don’t want to use drugs doesn’t mean I shun everyone who does.”

“Well, yeah, but–” Natalie was left almost sputtering as Alice walked away from her table. She couldn’t remember the last time she'd said something so assertively like that, especially to her friends, but Deb had been nothing but kind to her and had been really sweet about checking in on her in a way that Natalie and her other friends had not. There was no way she was going to let them make it sound like Deb should be beneath her notice, though a part of her worried that she’d felt that way before Deb actually came up and talked to her. Seh liked to think of herself as open-minded about other people, and in general a rather self-effacing person, but with the ‘gifted-student’ culture and the way her dad, talked about all the weed laws being passed in the various states it wouldn’t surprise her if that superiority view had leaked into her worldview.

Jeez, tumblr had really changed the way she thought about things. Her inner frustration with her friends turned into amusement at the almost pretentiousness of her thoughts, causing a light giggle to pop out of her mouth.

“Hey, what’s funny?”

“Just my own thoughts... I think I’ve spent too much time on tumblr, heh.” Deb looked bemused and amused. “Alrighty then.”

Alice sat down and started staring at Deb expectantly.“So what were you planning to show me?”

“Ah, yeah. I mean, I was just gonna show you this thing I do to get bootlegs. It’s mainly just like a google search and this subreddit I’m a part of...”

“Wait–are you a bootleg dealer??” Deb’s eyes got big and her mouth opened but no sound came out. “Oh my god, you are!”

“N-no! I’m ah just... I’m a collector...” Her voice started to drop off into a mumble and she blushed and looked away. “I really like musicals.”

Alice giggled at Deb’s stuttering. “Heehee, you can relax, I’m not gonna turn you into the police for collecting bootlegs. I don’t even know that they would even care heehee.”

Deb glared at Alice but it was clear she was trying not to smile. “Oh I am SO not sharing my bootlegs with you now.” With that she started giggling too.

“Oh, yeah, cause _that’s_ what I’d turn you in for, the musical theater bootlegs, instead of the massive amounts of weed you smoke, which is still illegal in Michigan, by the way.” Alice could barely get that last part out through her giggles. Both girls were giggling so loud that the nearby lunch tables in the cafeteria looked over to find out who was making the noise. Alice accidentally looked over to her usual table–where her other friends were seated–and saw that several of them were looking towards her and whispering. She accidentally met Natalie’s eye while she was mid-whisper; both girls looked away, awkward and embarrassed. Alice’s smile melted away. Since when had she felt so awkward with her friends?

“Hey, you okay?” Deb’s smile had also faded, but hers was now a face of wary and concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Alice hoped that would be true soon.

“Did, did something happen with your friends?” Deb had seen the look Alice had made at her normal table, and the whispering was still happening. “I hope I didn’t cause any problems or take you away from your friends.”

“They weren’t really paying attention to me until I did something gossip-worthy, like hanging out with a stoner. Even though I’m being forced to move, they only used it to guilt me into going to a party this weekend.”

“Really? None of them cared about how you were feeling?” If anything the look of concern had only deepend.

“I mean they did when I first told them but I kinda haven’t told them how much it’s affecting me. Plus, I won’t be moving until the summer, so it’s not like newer gossip hasn’t been drawing their attention in the week since I told them...” Alice had looked away partway through, going into her thoughts a bit, so when Deb put her hands over Alice’s, it startled her. She looked up at Deb, and her face was full of sympathy and empathy and concern.

“I’m sure if you showed them how you really feel they would be supportive. You’ve been friends with them for a long time. Why didn’t you show them how you really feel?”

As Deb started to speak, Alice looked away again. Why hadn’t she told them? Because... because she didn’t want to give them cause for concern. Because she wanted to believe that she actually felt that it wasn’t a big deal. Because she was scared she was being melodramatic, or because she was being melodramatic by brooding and bottling instead of sharing. When Alice didn’t reply immediately, Deb didn’t try to fill the silence like she usually might. She just waited, and Alice wasn’t entirely sure if she was grateful.

“...At the time, I told myself it was to protect them, to avoid making it a bigger deal than it was. That... probably came from my anxiety. I wonder if I was almost... trying to test them, like the melodramatic _bitch_ that I am.”

Sometime during that speech, Alice had started crying–she noticed as she wiped away her tears. It seemed like she was always crying around this girl. Luckily, Deb didn’t seem to mind, though she had moved an arm around Alice to try and comfort her.

“Okay, one, you are not _any_ kind of bitch–you’re too sweet for that. Two, you are a bit dramatic at times, but you’re a theater nerd, it’s to be expected, and bottling up your feelings like this is only going to make you more dramatic. Three, even if you were being melodramatic, it’s about your feelings on the matter that matter. _You_ are the one most affected, and they’re the ones who are supposed to help _you_. Four, if you don’t trust them enough to share your true feelings, why are you friends with them?”

“I never said I didn’t trust them.”

“You didn’t have to. If you’d trusted them, you’d be with them right now and wouldn’t be needing to talk to someone about how you feel like they don’t care about your feelings.”

“What the–are you some kind of therapist?” Alice gave a weak smile to Deb along with the joke. She so rarely made jokes with her friends, yet this was at least her second in the last fifteen minutes.

Deb smiled in response. “I guess I’ve been to enough therapy to understand this kind of thing.”

“You’re right, though. I don’t. I don’t really trust them. I don’t know how it got to that point, but I don’t tell them much of anything about my issues anymore. I honestly don’t really talk in the group either, though I think that might be more due to anxiety than anything they did.”

“I mean, it almost never is one defined thing, and trust is a two-way street, so it’s on you and them both. But I’m not a therapist.” They both smiled.

“Thanks for trying to help. And hey, maybe you should be a therapist.”

“Heh, I dunno.”

“But I wanna see your musical stash, and then I can show you mine,” she said with a wink.

“Oh, you have a stash, too, do you?”

“Of a sort.”

“If it’s just the videos of all the musicals you’ve ever been in, I’ve seen most of those.”

“Oh, _have_ you now?”

Deb blushed. “Maybe...”

They both giggled and continued chatting, oblivious to the influx of whispers from other people in the cafeteria.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one was a little shorter but I thought it was a good place to stop. Constructive criticism is always welcome! Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first piece of fanfiction ever... I'm intending to follow Alice basically until TGWDLM. I'm working on the second chapter now. I'd appreciate some constructive criticism cause I'm not super great at editing my own work. Thanks!


End file.
